Not Broken
by MeanyOwl
Summary: After an experiment to produce monstrous living weapons fails, Berlith d'Medani is asked to help care for the victims and help them live their lives as best they can. Help those who need help, as the Beggar Dane says.
1. Chapter 1

You're not less than a person because you can't walk. You're not suffering terribly just because you cannot see. There is no shame in needing help to get by. But there is shame in exploiting those who need help.

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**Not Broken**

Summary: After an experiment to produce monstrous living weapons fails, Berlith d'Medani is asked to help care for the victims and help them live their lives as best they can. Help those who need help, as the Beggar Dane says.

**Chapter One**: Misery Loves Company.

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5/5/997, Kythri Coterminous.

On a metal vehicle, traveling at great speed along a path of magnetically repellent stones, there were many people. One of them was Berlith - a friar from the Silver Flame church in the devout nation of Thrane. The vehicle, the lightning rail, was bound for the south, specifically to Wroat, Breland's capital. Berlith, an older khoravar, had grown used to hardship as a priestess errant. But public transportation had a way of making people miserable regardless of their tolerances.

'Be thou for the people', she thought to herself as she sat among dozens of other people on the lightning rail car. She did so mostly to keep her temper under control as a human child in the seat behind her kept pulling on her hair. She had looked over her shoulder the first time it happened and could tell that the boy's mother was not in a good state. Faded Aundarian clothes and a haunted look made Berlith suspect the woman and her son were from Thaliost - on their way to a new life in Breland.

Berlith had read the stories in the gazette. People burned at the stake, martial law, and a madman at the helm. Rather than cause the poor woman any more grief, she allowed the human child to pull on her salt and pepper hair to entertain himself. How would the woman take it, Berlith wondered, when a priestess of the Silver Flame took a chastising tone when she had just escaped a mad Silver Flame Cardinal? No, it was best for Berlith to keep her silence.

The boy was too young to actually yank hard enough to hurt Berlith, anyway. Khoravar had different pain responses than humans - the scalp was not so sensitive because of differences in their hair. A Karrnathi couple found the sight, and Berlith's non-reaction, quite amusing. They didn't laugh, Karrnathi people were deathly allergic to laughter, but they had tiny smiles on their faces which got a little bigger every time they looked Berlith's way.

A horn from the front of the lightning rail sounded out - the Wroat station was close, and the lightning rail would begin to slow down. Berlith took the opportunity to make sure her traveling papers, passport, and arcane signet were all accounted for - her dragonmark was in an unfortunate place, so she wanted to avoid using that as a means to identify herself as part of House Medani. And if she didn't, there was likely to be some problems with a Thranish khoravar in Breland. The treaty which had ended the continent-spanning war was barely a year old, old sentiments hadn't had adequate time to die down.

Berlith had no doubts that a city guard for Wroat - the capital of Breland and never directly touched by war - would see an older khoravar woman, and believe they'd found an easy target. When the lightning rail stopped, Berlith stood, ensured her cloak covered her handbag, and traced the sprawling scar from her chin to her left temple. She hadn't been an easy target back then, she told herself, she wouldn't be one now that she was old and grey.

Wroat's lightning rail station was made of rough-hewn logs tied together in the Brelish style to hold the green-shingled roof up like a massive pavilion tent. The only walled and covered areas were the restrooms and the rail cart repair depot. Breland blue banners waved too and fro with the shifting winds.

The curtain wall that surrounded Wroat had been updated since she had last visited. At the bottom of the inner wall, there was a sheen to indicate acid-protection. Clearly, they had, at some point, feared their walls being melted out from underneath them during the war. Berlith had time to inspect it and to try and determine its age while she waited in line at the check-in station. She didn't see the little boy or his mother among those who got off at Wroat - which meant that they would go on ahead to Sharn.

A House Sivis gnome operated the check-in station, flanked by four humans in half-armor. When Berlith got to the front of the line, the gnome was clearly out of sorts. From the way she kept touching her forehead, it was likely some stress headache. Healing was not Berlith's specialty in divine magic - she knew how to use it, but she was not so practiced that she could offer to treat the Sivis gnome. Nor would it be appropriate, in the given context.

"Papers, please," the gnome asked and held out her hand. She was dressed in the Brelish style, with detached sleeves and her shoulders exposed. Even the simple, down to earth fashions of Breland were luxurious compared to Berlith's own monotone cassock and cloak. When the gnome obtained the papers she asked for, the inspection started. "Do you have anything to declare?"

Berlith opened her handbag and retrieved three prism-shaped red gemstones. Spellshards. She laid these on the check-in station's desk and waited.

"Please present signet to confirm Medani membership." The gnome leaned forward to verify Berlith's signet ring, then returned to the papers. "Recognized…" There was further minutia to the check-in, made more complicated as Breland's records incorrectly documented Berlith as a member of the order of Templars - due to a battle she had participated in.

But, after repeated clarifications and implied threats of legal action, Berlith was on her way to the Medani enclave. Her luggage had been collected quietly by members of her House to be brought to the same location - they traveled separately in case one was attacked. Either she or her reports would arrive at the enclave.

House Medani, like the bankers of House Kundarak, greatly valued security. But they preferred the path of being seen as inconsequential. So the House Medani enclave was not a palatial estate but a series of disguised buildings linked by tunnels and magic. Berlith's House traded in the safety of others, evidenced in their ownership and maintenance of the Warning Guild - and to that end, they acquired information from all possible venues.

While Berlith traversed the streets of Wroat, she recalled the fiasco that had been engineered to plant her within the ranks of the Silver Flame church. She passed the scenes of public drunkenness she had participated in, and the spot where she had broken a wine bottle on a bugbear's head. All planned to paint her as a black sheep among her family.

She passed a sight on the road, around the corner from her entry point to the conclave, and paused. In an alleyway, she saw beggars, a family of goblins. They had gathered wood in the form of sticks and sheets, and some rope, to try and fashion together a shelter - in anticipation of the rain that was due to fall after sundown, no doubt. Goblins were everywhere in Khorvaire, it had been their continent once upon a time. And no doubt, they had learned to fear people who offered to 'help' them. And no doubt, her lateness would be noticed by the House. It would be ill-advised at best to waste time on the goblins.

Berlith rolled up her sleeves as she walked down the alley toward the beggars, and ran through her memory of knots.

Thirty minutes past the time she was projected to arrive at the butcher's boutique that was the face for the Medani enclave entrance, Berlith arrived. She placed an order for Karrnwood ham and demanded to watch the khoravar butcher cut it so that he didn't cheat her even a little. With looks of disdain and affront from other patrons, she was led to the back, and immediately down a flight of stairs to the underground passages adjacent to the sewer lines.

Medani khoravar went about their business in the tunnels, though Berlith had to note how skinny everyone appeared to be. Perhaps she had started to develop the grandma 'feed everyone who's skinny' instincts, or perhaps Thranish cooking made her used to seeing people with more meat and pudge on their bones than Medani rations allowed.

The tunnels were of cobblestone - they had been just rough-hewn rock when Berlith had left for Thrane. Medani khoravar were speculated to descend from the drow of Xen'drik, which influenced their darker-than-normal skin colors, and their ability to see perfectly well in minimal light - which made the tunnels' use of bioluminescent moss perfectly adequate. No magical lights meant that the tunnels were harder to detect.

She was led to a small, featureless room with a two-way mirror, a chair, and a table as its main features. They had to make sure she wasn't being spied on, or a changeling, given the lateness of her arrival. With grace born of old age, she sat with her back straight and looked dead center at the two-way mirror.

"I helped a family of goblins set up a shelter from the rains," she said, without prompting. "And it worries me that the shelters for this city, capital of a country of down-to-earth hardworking people, still have beggars." Behind her glasses, her eyes became accusatory. "I had thought, with almost a hundred years free of the restrictions of Galifar, we could have fixed that issue."

Each of the original Five Nations had their own sense of community, and whom they looked out for. Breland and Thrane had been the ones where the poorest citizens weren't considered leeches, failures, or undesirables. Under Galifar, strict laws on the treatment of poor and disenfranchised people kept such measures at bay. Prince Jarot, before he became king, famously threw acid upon food donations for Metrol's homeless populace.

The silence was Berlith's answer, as detection spells likely went on behind the glass. After ten minute's time, the door opened and a young khoravar in retainer's livery beckoned her over. "You're clear to walk the tunnels," she told Berlith, differential to a more senior House member, though the girl's lighter skin and brown hair put her in the Baron's bloodline, not Berlith's. She couldn't meet Berlith's eyes for more than a minute or two. "The Baron would like to speak with you when you have the chance."

That gave Berlith pause - nothing in her reports was so serious that the patriarch of their House would need to talk to her directly. Something had to have gone wrong.

* * *

'Be thou for the people', she chanted to herself in her mind repeatedly, as she sat in a nondescript hansom cab on its way out of Wroat. All in all, she had spent maybe three hours in the capital itself. At her side was a khoravar man fifty years her junior - the patriarch of House Medani. She had sent him birthday presents when she could because he was her cousin - their grandmothers married after their husbands had passed away from mysterious causes.

"Let me be clear," Trelib started, diplomatic in his tone. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the countryside as they passed as if his conversation with Berlith was a distraction for him. "This is not a punishment. It is an interim position until we can complete an internal investigation and present our findings to the king."

Berlith narrowed her gaze at the Medani patriarch and gripped her handbag tighter. "The fact that you start off with that makes me question its validity, sir."

"It would have been worse if I clarified after the fact, I'm afraid." A patch of mud on the road was caught in the horse's shoe and was launched right at Trelib's face as he feigned a magnanimous look.

Berlith refrained from laughter as the leader of her House had to clean mud off his face and attempt to regain his dignity.

He attempted to start his magnanimous act again and was promptly struck with another wad of mud. Trelib afterward opened the hatch to speak to the driver and instructed her to avoid the mud if possible. When he closed the hatch and turned round to sit comfortably, he was struck with mud a third time. Trelib, fed up, finally pulled the curtains on the open end of the cab, just as a fourth mud glob struck. After he had cleaned himself up, with a helpful bit of magic from Berlith, he began to speak once more.

"_Anyway_, we're heading to Glyphstone Keep." The fair-skinned khoravar used a pocket mirror to make sure he had no lingering flecks of mud on his face. "The House offered to fund its reconstruction in return for renting the keep per the Korth Edicts. A hop, skip, and a jump later, his majesty comes to me and asks him to help clean up a mess left by his Citadel."

Berlith arched a salt and pepper eyebrow at this information. "How odd, the Citadel usually cleans up its own messes."

Trelib's face became a mask of disdain. "Certain branches of the Citadel have abused Boranel's trust. He has since rescinded that trust, and given it to me. And I, in turn, gave it to someone who - allegedly - was not worthy of that trust." At last, the Baron met Berlith's eyes, his stare intense. "We are using Glyphstone Keep as an impromptu hospital to treat and study people afflicted with aberrant dragonmarks. The previous head of the facility, a Jorasco excoriate, had been caught abusing the patients. Boranel dislikes that."

Berlith found her face automatically tighten and work its way into a frown. During her years of study at the Twelve, the professors had an almost universal disdain for the aberrant marked. Standing policy across all the dragonmarked Houses was that services were to be refused to such people - though the militant House Deneith had a more brutal kill-on-sight policy that was authorized by the Korth Edicts. While true dragonmarks could be used constructively, aberrant marks only served to destroy. Automatically, she envisioned the facility as a glorified prison.

"He won't tell me which branch of the Citadel did it, and I don't care. But what they did was they rounded up as many aberrant marked people as they could, and tried to force their marks to grow to levels of power we haven't seen for fifteen hundred years."

The blood drained from Berlith's face.

"That is the appropriate reaction. Near as we can tell, they failed. All but one of their test subjects were left permanently crippled by the experiments. The exception broke out of containment and made her way to Sharn. Everyone sent after her has ended up dead - Boranel has ordered us to leave her be."

Berlith took a deep breath and ran her hands over her face to calm herself down. "If they've been crippled, wouldn't it be kinder to put them out of their misery?" In her mind, these test subjects foamed at the mouth like rabid beasts and strained against chains in heavily guarded cells. In her mind, their aberrant marks pulsed red like veins of hot magma under their skin.

"Perhaps," Trelib granted her, "but Boranel put to us a tiered list of objectives with these people." The Baron began to count off on his fingers. "One, ensure that these people are treated with dignity and respect. Two, try to find out as much as we can about the aberrant marks without compromising number one. And three, help these people find some way to be part of normal society again without compromising the first or second directives."

"Boranel has become either an optimist, or has forgotten that the aberrant dragonmarked are shunned for a reason." Berlith shook her head and scowled. "What happens if we succeed and then one of these… people require a doctor's help? They'd die anyway."

The Medani Baron shrugged. "The king asked, and I agreed. I would like you to inspect the facility, and hold the line with the patients until we can find a permanent viceroy on the chance that Boranel asks us to dismiss the previous one." Trelib leaned back in his seat and looked at the roof of the carriage. "There has been an uptick in the number of aberrant dragonmarks appearing - and in their strength. Of great concern is the amount of aberrants manifesting in the other dragonmarked Houses. I want to know why."

They sat in silence for the rest of the trip. The monotony was broken when Trelib opened the curtains once more and was immediately struck in the face with mud.

With the curtains pulled back, Berlith could see the rugged countryside of Breland give way to what appeared to be multiple concurrent construction sites. Humanoid figures made of metal, stone, and rare woods did most of the work, while humans worked with and supervised them. Warforged, Berlith remembered. Breland had freed them, to do as they wished. They worked on many plots of land, on houses and roads. Some of the houses were already completed, triangular homes that reached up to almost comical heights, lined with dirt that had moss just beginning to grow. Around each home were similar triangular mounds that acted like fences. As she passed, she saw some under construction as well - a layer of branches and moss, then dirt, then humus on top.

"Since we've finished reconstructing the keep," Trelib said as he waved to the workers, "we sponsored a new suburban settlement. A public relations stunt, mostly. But it keeps soldiers in work and gives them time to adjust to civilian life again."

Glyphstone Keep was built on a small, egg-shaped island in the Howling River. A gatehouse on the shore guarded a bridge that was so narrow it barely allowed the horse and cab to cross. The Keep was clearly still being repaired, as half of it looked relatively new with gleaming red shingles on the towers and topmost buildings. But the facade was mottled in color - in the process of being cleaned, and the cobbled ground was simply dirty. The keep was more or less a chateau, not a true keep - a house meant to inspire the castle aesthetic.

While they approached the Keep, an awful racket rang out. Berlith's instincts recognized it as an agonized scream - from a smaller personage, a gnome. Her mind went a mile a minute with reasons why such sounds would come from the keep, and the most likely answer that she came up with was that one of the prisoners had escaped and had begun to maul someone. She didn't wait for the cab to come to a stop at the castle steps. Out from her handbag, she drew her holy symbol - an arrowhead inscribed with the mark of silver fire - and lept from the cab while it was still in motion. Without hesitation, she moved up through the gatehouse, past the Medani aides and warforged in orderly uniforms that had arranged in a presentational fashion for her, and ascended a flight of narrow spiral stairs to the next floor.

She heard Trelib call out to her as she walked through the stone building, but paid him no heed. Someone was being torn apart by a rabid aberrant marked cretin - she had to put a stop to it since no one else clearly would. Her cloak and friar's robes billowed around her as she marched, laying layers of enhancement magic to help her fend off the aberrant when she encountered it. Berlith's voice spoke spell incantations while her mind ran through all the emergency healing options she had for the day, all while her body followed the screams until she found the source.

On the third floor, on the north side of the keep, she came to a studded, heavy wooden door and found it locked. Her thoughts went to the circumstances that would cause someone to be locked in a prisoner's cell. Fortunately, she had an enchanted ring for such occasions. She knocked upon the knob with the ring and the tumblers moved to allow her entry.

The room wasn't a cell, as it turned out. It was a private room, albeit not well kept. Boxes lined the walls, and the curtains were drawn. A small figure - the gnome she had heard - was strapped to a bed sized for a human, dressed in a hospital gown. At close range, she couldn't mistake the agonized screams as coming from any other source, but what caused the pain eluded her. At least, until she saw the vine-like scabs that covered the gnome's right leg from his ankle all the way to his hip. One of the aberrant prisoners.

Her rush to help died down almost instantly. Cautious, she approached the aberrant like he were a wounded animal - she didn't know his power or the level of control he had. She could clearly tell he was in pain - but she suddenly had less drive to help when only the aberrant suffered. However, she took a deep breath and pressed forward when it was clear the gnome was in too much pain to acknowledge her presence. Her defenses were strong in anticipation of a fight against an aberrant, so she felt confident enough to try something.

The gnome's aberrant mark lit up and bled where the scabs flaked away, so Berlith ascertained that the mark was the cause of the pain. "_Irian, eternal day, shine in the fire that burns away suffering and corruption_," Berlith chanted as she invoked a healing spell which didn't require her to _touch_ the aberrant. From her fingertip, a beam of intense white light shot out and struck the aberrant mark on the gnome's thigh.

Scabs broke off as white light traced through the mark. The gnome's screaming stopped, and he froze in place with his eyes bugged out. When the spell ended, the gnome relaxed and panted, but screamed no more. However, his mark had begun to bleed rather severely since all the scabs had been removed. Berlith acted quickly and reached into her handbag for mundane medical supplies. Her hands were covered with sturdy leather gloves then she began to bandage the gnome's leg from ankle to his thigh. The hip was more unpleasant to bandage, she had to move the hospital gown and blot certain aspects out of her vision.

When she was done, she pinned the bandages together and turned to leave.

"Thank you," gasped the gnome to the khoravar's back.

Berlith tried not to make a disgusted sound as she left the room. Immediately after she had closed the door, she found a warforged in orderly's clothes behind her. But rather than feel contrite about her intrusion, she pointed right into the artificial person's face and began to make demands. "Change those bandages every day, positive energy seems to help mitigate the pain, or stop it temporarily, so a few drops of potion should work if applied as a rub. And for the flame's sake, get that man some smallclothes."

The warforged was a foot and a half taller than Berlith, and easily five times as durable. It could've easily smacked her and likely broken her arm. But when confronted with a demanding elderly khoravar, it pushed its pointer fingers into each other as if flustered. "Doctor Rachor left strict orders," it started.

"I don't care what orders a crackpot left that resulted in that thing screaming so loud it could be heard outside the keep!" Berlith hadn't shouted in years, even such a short burst hurt her vocal cords. She rubbed her throat and glared. "This is a secret operation. We don't need rumors about torture happening in our facility."

Without another word, Berlith left the area and began to trace her steps back through the castle. Not long after she'd started, she almost walked into Trelib in a tight spiral staircase. There was some satisfaction in being the one to look down on her patriarch, even if it was purely circumstantial.

"I trust," he said with an arched brow, "that you dealt with the problem?"

"I shut it up by providing basic care, yes." Her tone was clipped and professional. "If all the aberrants are kept in those kinds of conditions, we won't learn anything useful from them. I need to review the documentation and find out what else has gone wrong here, show me to the administration office."

Trelib smiled, but Berlith only saw it for a second before he turned to show her the way. There was work to be done.

For the record, khoravar is the Eberron name the half-elf race chose for themselves after their population became self-sustaining. And because this caused something of a stir when I dropped it a few chapters in for Skooma Cat, yes, this is an LGBT+ heavy cast. Some will be explicit, some will be implied, some will be left completely ambiguous.

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In case you haven't picked up on it yet, I do like to gay up my stories quite a bit.

If you want to see the castle Glyphstone Keep is based off of, google 'guizhou castle'.


	2. Chapter 2

To better separate them from gnomes, and because I dig the design, I've opted to adopt Lutro Draw's vision of halflings. That is - different ears, add a short tail, musculature closer to a dwarf, and voila!

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**Chapter Two:** Compliance.

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5/5/997.

Glyphstone Keep, as it happened, was also undergoing a remodel. The stone walls and floors were being covered by wood paneling and carpets, while light fixtures were affixed to the walls and hung from the ceilings. The administrative building, the only building completely standalone from the Keep, was the first and thus far only area to receive these benefits. Orientated to the south, it gave a spectacular view of the distant towers of Sharn, the sheer size of the Dagger River, and the budding settlement nearby.

There was a patio area outside the building, guarded by rails, where Trelib and Berlith had to wait while the keys to the building were retrieved. They stood in awkward silence while Berlith's mind spun like a Zilargo top to consider all the ways she could get out of the situation she found herself in. The option of simply throwing herself from the patio edge to drown in the conflux of the Howling and Dagger rivers was not thrown away, due to Berlith's need to be slightly dramatic.

The khoravar assistant that had been sent to fetch the keys returned, and unlocked the building. Trelib led the way through the halls, while the assistant tagged along behind Berlith as there were more doors in need of keys. While they ascended the floors of the building, Berlith got to discern what the House had aimed for in these remodels: the decor drew strongly from the influence of Morgrave University. Alumni from that school would be put into the scholarly mindset by the atmosphere alone.

"Patient files are kept in the viceroy's office," Trelib explained. "While the less interesting documents are kept in files and records - in the cellar."

Berlith didn't need to be told why she was being told such things - Medani protocol said to keep copies of everything in different locations. But in practice, the locations were connected for quick transport. In short: There was a secret passage from the viceroy's office to the cellar. Useful to know.

The Viceroy's office took up the central third of the top floor, with two faux-battlement patios on either side - possibly for cross-ventilation in the summer. It was an absurd amount of wasted space, in Berlith's opinion. She looked over the chintz chairs arranged around the south-facing window, the wind-chimes near the curtained doors, and the recessed bookshelves with disdain. The mechanical clock, however, was craftsmanship she could appreciate. "I can tell where the budget has been going," she remarked in a snide tone. She bypassed Trelib to begin her examination of the bookshelves for where the files were hidden.

The Mark of Detection, for which House Medani claimed a seat at the Twelve, was attuned to detecting secrets and danger. It acted as a tingling in the extremities and the back of the head when it automatically activated and granted those marked with its powers of keen intuition. Her hand displayed the telltale tingle as Berlith passed near the edge of a recessed bookshelf. With an appreciative nod, she avoided the trap and went to another shelf.

Trelib cleared his throat and indicated the desk. "Our copies of the files are here. The official documents were taken for our internal investigation." The paler khoravar ran his hand along the polished wood and pressed down on an otherwise innocuous section. A portion of the desk flipped up, and revealed a hidden compartment, with a mirror built into the other side of the desk, cosmetics laid neatly around the edge of the compartment, and a key hidden in a tube of lipstick.

Medani khoravar loved to incorporate hidden rooms, compartments, and puzzles into their architecture and furniture. It frustrated their enemies and exercised their minds. So Berlith watched appreciatively as Trelib took the key, inserted it into the mirror's frame, and pulled it open to reveal a cabinet hidden there.

Several leather folders were packed into the cabinet, which Trelib took and laid out on the desk. "Alyssa, could you wait outside?" The Medani Baron politely spoke to their key-toting tagalong and took a seat in a comfortable chair on the 'guest' side of the desk.

Berlith took the cue and sat in the viceroy's swivel chair. With ease, she reversed the process Trelib had demonstrated and laid the folders out on the desk for her review. "I'm guessing Alyssa is going to be second in command?"

The Baron nodded. "Yes, her skillset lies in the administrative side of things - however we have a shadow investigation of her ongoing, to see if she was involved in this… farce," Trelibe threw the word out after a moment's struggle to find an appropriate adjective. "Keep an eye on her around the patients, if you would."

Berlith wanted to correct him to 'prisoners', but she forced herself to stay silent and open the first of the files - the gnome she had healed less than an hour ago. His name stalled her momentum right away. Mankarr Tomraan. Hastily, she skipped a few pages to find information on his relatives and immediately had to drop the folder to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Not three minutes into this and already I'm seeing problems." Without looking, she took the folder and held it up. "You have the son of Xandrar's mayor in here."

"We can't help who the Citadel took for their experiments," Trelib said in a long-suffering tone. "It doesn't get better, I'm afraid."

Discouraged, but unwilling to abandon the mess she had already agreed to, Berlith returned to the file. On the opening page, it included a sketch of Mankarr before he had been snatched up. He looked to be a typical young gnome - green hair, mini-elf features, eyes bright and full of mischief. In the sketch, he had more piercings in his eyebrows and ears than at present, and his green hair was cut in a fade.

A bachelor and a bard - a dangerous combination, in Berlith's experience. There were clippings from local news sources about his band's performances in the city to keep spirits up during the war. There was even an interview, which Berlith would have to read through at a later date. However, there was nothing on how he had been acquired - he was a public figure in Xandrar, people had to have noticed his absence.

Berlith turned to the pages which documented his mark's powers. When it had first manifested, the mark had the power to turn blood into acid - which already explained why he had been in so much pain when Berlith arrived. Certain parallels had been drawn to similar magic used by Karrnathi necromancers, but the text noted that Mankarr's variant lasted significantly longer, and could target himself. However, during the experimentation, the Citadel forced his mark to expand and gain a new power - regeneration.

What followed was a plethora of depositions by Mankarr to the former viceroy about what experiments the Citadel had done to test his regeneration. Just from skimming, Berlith found it hard to avoid anger and dismay. Aberrants couldn't control their powers, and they were innately dangerous. But what she read crossed the line to outright torture from the outset.

She closed the folder, with a sigh, and picked up the next. "You said it doesn't get better, does it get worse?"

Without a word, Trelib reached for a folder toward the bottom and handed it to her.

She glanced at the name, and it felt like the seat underneath her had ceased to exist. 'HRH Aejar ir'Wynarn', one of Boranel's sons. Berlith set the folder down, unopened, and buried her face in her hands. "You know," she said, slightly muffled, "I think you were right. If you had said this wasn't a punishment _after_ I found out all this, I would have hit you. Repeatedly."

"And I would have deserved it," the Baron readily agreed. "This is a barrel of alch-fire just looking for a reason to go off. The House, well and truly, has no one better at keeping a bad situation from getting worse than you." Trelib tried to look reassuring when Berlith looked at him again. But his eyes shifted to the left for a moment, as if he had recalled something, and it killed his smile. "And… well, there is no easy way to put it, their families know."

It was like an explosion had gone off near Berlith, all the minor background sounds were replaced with a high-pitched ringing. Absolutely stunned, she sat in silence for a few seconds to process what had been said. The running assumption she had gone with previously was that the Citadel had faked their deaths. Berlith shook herself from her stupor and tapped the prince's folder. "I _kind of figured_ Boranel knew, at least. But what do you mean, _their families know_?"

"Boranel demanded we inform-"

Berlith cut him off, and rose from her seat and leaned on the desk to shout at her patriarch. "And you _listened to him?!_" She seized the folders, held them up, and shook them in front of Trelib before she threw them down on the desk again. "Any one of these cases, I'm guessing, could leave a stain on our House's reputation for _decades_. And if House Deneith finds out about this - they'll have _kill squads_ out here, and make it look like bandits attacked!"

Trelib's expression was dour, like he did not appreciate the shout, but could not reprimand her for it. "Isn't it fortuitous then, that the settlement right outside is made entirely out of veteran soldiers?" He stood, so the light would catch the ridiculous ceremonial armor of the House patriarch. "Isn't it fortuitous then, that and it was _the king's_ Citadel that did this to these people, not us?" The Baron leaned forward to meet his cousin's glare with his own. "And isn't it fortuitous then, that the previous viceroy in charge of these people's well-being was a _Jorasco_ excoriate?"

Neither wanted to look away first, so they did so in unison, and both returned to their seats.

"Their families know. Boranel made sure they got full disclosure - don't you start, I didn't want that either!" Trelib pointed at her, a warning in his eyes when Berlith looked ready to shout again. "And, in light of the alleged abuse, he has promised visitation. The situation is _bad_, your orders are to make it _better_. In whatever way you can."

Berlith wisely chose to funnel her anger into the task at hand, rather than pick a fresh fight with her Baron. "I'll do what I can. This seems like a bit more of a problem than keeping Thrane from slaughtering civilians, but I'll try my best." She picked up the prince's folder and cracked it open to start on it.

"We'll see. The Citadel forced their marks to evolve - we assume the process has stopped, but keep us informed with regular updates on their control." Trelib steepled his fingers and he looked out onto the westward patio - the rain had started. "Your effects will be brought to you post haste. Alyssa can give you a tour of the facility when you're done here. And cousin?"

Berlith looked up from her examination of the prince's file to glare at Trelib with full force.

He didn't meet her gaze. "I truly am sorry that the moment you came home, you were given this to work on. The House will ensure you are appropriately compensated."

Berlith scoffed and went back to work. "One point five times my previous rate." She could practically hear the House accounts scream out in agony when her Baron deeply sighed.

* * *

6/5/997.

"Are you familiar with the Healer's Guild, Alyssa?"

The younger khoravar woman, possibly a grand-niece of Berlith's from the girl's hair and skin tone, shook her head while she helped Berlith don a white medical coat over the friar's cassock.

Berlith pulled on her personal leather gloves once the coat was on, then extracted her hair net from her handbag. "The Healer's Guild is the organization that runs House Jorasco's clinics and hospitals. It is also the organization that certifies all medical professionals from surgeons to orderlies." It always took a ridiculous amount of effort to get Berlith's mane of hair, three times the size of her head, into a hair net but after some decades of practice, she could do so while talking. "I got my certification with them, even though I'm not really a healing priestess."

They were in a lab, where the studies into the aberrant dragonmark had taken place under the previous viceroy. With Berlith as the interim viceroy, the lab was re-opened and the staff could return to their study of the previously collected samples. Or so they had thought, except Berlith had laid out a copy of the Healer's Guild standardized study guide from 933 for them to all share.

"So, to ensure we don't have any more mistakes, none of you are handling any samples or interacting with the aberrants until you read through this and can go off - individually - to get certified for a lab environment." Berlith smiled into the faces of a baker's dozen academics and clapped twice. "Get to work."

With that dealt with, Berlith left the room to meet the warforged orderlies outside. She handed each one of them a slate with a blank paper sheet and a pencil, then snapped her fingers for them to follow.

"How has the gnome aberrant been faring?" Their collective footsteps made quite the noise on the stone floors, but Berlith knew from experience that warforged hearing was keen enough to pick her voice out from the racket.

Coolander, the head orderly, answered. "Your orders have been carried out, and a potion rub is applied whenever his mark begins to affect him. A soothing tea has been supplied for his throat."

"Good, proactivity, I like that in an orderly." She paused to tap Coolander on the head. "Keep up that kind of thinking."

When her back was turned the other twelve orderlies looked at Coolander with envy, while the head orderly simply started walking again.

"We're going to run through each of the patients real quick, the gnome and the prince will be last. Take notes on my orders for each patient and jot down ideas on how to implement them." There was no need to worry about the warforged's knowledge of Healer's Guild standards - per the facility's purchase history, the warforged had trained as field medics by the Guild to increase their resale value. Now, it increased their wages and made them reliable. "We'll start with the elf."

Berlith ascended to the next floor via the stairs - all the aberrant's rooms were along the northern side of the building on the third and fourth floors. That would need to change - lest their marks interact with each other. Once they arrived at a heavily reinforced door, Berlith unlocked it without knocking and entered. The orderlies filed in behind her.

Chained to the floor by heavy shackles around her wrists was 'the elf.' She had the benefit of actual clothes, though they were all-white to match the hospital gowns of other aberrants. Covered head to toe in white silks, with just her eyes exposed, she was a warrior of Valenar. "Who is it?" The elf asked while she shifted in place. "It doesn't sound like the witch, come to play her games."

Berlith observed the aberrant while she observed the room. Like Mankarr's room, it was blank except for boxes around the walls. The room lacked a bed, however, and sported a roll of padded fabric near the aberrant's resting place. The aberrant herself still looked as dangerous as she would on horseback with her curved sword ready to remove Berlith's head. However, her eyes put doubt in Berlith as to her deadliness. The aberrant mark reached down from her scalp, crossed her eyebrows, lids, and extended into the eyes themselves when the elf opened them.

The Vales Tairn elf, once a mighty warrior, was blind.

"Vaedo?" Berlith asked, and didn't wait for a response. "I'm the interim viceroy for this facility. We're going to conduct a physical exam to ensure your records are up to date, and then you will be free to return to your previous activity."

"Waiting for death doesn't count as an activity, new witch," Vaedo spat. "Leave me to waste away, I will fight you every step until I am free." She rattled her chains, to highlight her defiance.

There was no need to make expressions, but Berlith rose an eyebrow all the same. "Well, if that's what you want." The khoravar woman produced the key ring again and yanked on Vaedo's chain. It went taut as the two women, neither geared for pure strength, pulled on either end. While this went on, Berlith unlocked the shackles from their shared lock, and let the elf tumble backward once freed.

Vaedo, in memory of when she was a mighty warrior perhaps, rolled to her feet and charged at Berlith. The Valaes Tairn would call her a novice were they witness to how she flailed and swung blindly, then found herself pinned by orderlies within moments of freedom.

"You will no longer be chained to the floor," Berlith said with a callous drawl. "And if you cooperate, you won't be confined to your room for much longer. Your kin will come to see you - but you are unwell. Until you learn to control your power, you will stay here. So use that as your motivation, perhaps?" Berlith watched as the two orderlies, Februhaha and Adjustus, barely struggled to hold the once mighty warrior down. "Are you going to keep fighting, or let me do the checkup?"

Vaedo's aberrant marked eyes looked in Berlith's general direction and squinted. "I will be free, someday."

"Someday," Berlith said and entertained the idea that Vaedo would devolve to the point where putting her down became necessary. "But not today."

The aberrant's mark arced with red electricity which lingered in her eyes for a moment afterward. "Then you may proceed without resistance."

* * *

Berlith found herself scrambling for reasons not to open the door to the next aberrant. As they approached, she stopped the orderlies multiple times to ask them about their notes and ideas. So far the only noteworthy suggestion came from Novembem, who suggested a section of the river be partitioned so the aberrants could swim without the ability to escape. Multiple times she stopped to double-check she hadn't forgotten someone in the rotation, only for the orderlies to correct her.

Until at last, she had no choice but to open the door.

The room was like other patient's rooms, except the boxes around the outside were opened, and the personal effects inside were scattered around. Toys, puzzles, colorful clothes, all covered the floor in a layer. There were clear spaces that so strongly resembled warforged footprints that Berlith became concerned with the habits of the orderlies.

On the smaller-than-normal bed was a pile of blankets huddled up near the top. From inside the breathing hole, she could make out a pair of eyes that watched her.

Berlith snapped her fingers, and a broom was handed to her, which she used to sweep a path from the door to the bed. "Nishi, I presume? You're much more lump-like than your picture would imply."

The lump on the bed closed its breathing hole and shrunk in on itself.

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Nishi, I'm Berlith, I'm taking over for the doctor while he's away. I need to do an exam to see how healthy you are."

The lump expanded just enough for a single word to pass through the breathing hole. "No."

"This isn't a 'yes or no' thing, Nishi." Berlith gave the aberrant more patience than she wanted to, because of the unique circumstances. "It needs to happen, you're out of date for your check-up, and certain vaccinations. Plus, I'm told you've been having dental problems, so I need to look at that."

Once more, the lump expanded enough to say "No" and then retracted in on itself.

"Well, alright. We were going to add some fried bananas to your lunch, but if you don't want to be nice, we can give it to the dogs instead."

A much more panicked "No!" emerged from the lump.

"You want fried bananas with your lunch?" Berlith rubbed her temple as she noted how a generic head-shape rose from the lump and shook up and down. "Then you need to let me look at you."

"Okay," the lump said at length and began to wiggle. After a moment, a halfling in a hospital gown sat where the lump had been. While gnomes were often accused of being rat-faced, halflings were often compared to cattle. Their ears were large and stuck out from the sides of their head, and as they grew to adults they began to gain tails with a variety of hair configurations which mostly resembled tribex. Nishi was a brown-haired halfling and he had only just started to grow his tail, but even as a pre-pubescent he was equal in size to Mankarr by dint of how small gnomes were.

In between speaking aloud things for the orderlies to note down, Berlith chanted spells into effect. Vaccination spells against common diseases and renewals of long-time protection. Given that Jorasco, one of two halfling dragonmarked Houses, had all but abandoned their homeland Nishi was likely the beneficiary of more modern medicinal magic than anyone from his tribe back on the Talenta Plains.

For a while, she was almost able to forget the halfling boy was an aberrant. But when she saw the withered, unsightly scar tissue that ran up his back there was no ignoring it. And she couldn't forget that Nishi was the only aberrant who had the details of his mark's manifestation known. A Citadel agent witnessed him play some game with other halfling children, jump an incredible distance, and begin to seize up once he landed.

With the others, she could assume they had manifested in a fit of rage or a tantrum - but Nishi was an uncomfortable reminder that sometimes they just appeared from nowhere. While she examined the boy's teeth, she chided herself. It _had_ come from somewhere, she just needed to help the academics figure out where. There was no chaos, only complexity. And when they understood the complexity, they would be wise.

"Alright, Nishi," Berlith said and forced a note of cheer into her voice. "All done. You'll get those fried bananas with your lunch."

It was hard to think of the boy as a monster when he looked so excited, but it dimmed soon after. "Can… can I go outside soon?"

Of course he wanted outside, Berlith forced herself to think. With his power, he could easily get away before anyone could stop him. "I'm afraid not, at least not yet. Be good, and maybe you can get a room with a window." 'With iron bars on both sides', she added to herself.

It was not entirely what the boy wanted, so he returned to his blanket lumpiness, but squinted at her before he left. "You don't want me to clean my room first?"

Berlith shrugged. "It's your room. You do with it what you want." Afterward, she stood and went to the door, where she paused. "Though, if you want chocolate sauce with your fried bananas, I would like your toys put underneath your bed before lunchtime."

The lump sat up in the bed just as the door swung shut.

With the aberrant not there to see, Berlith rubbed her eyes. At least the boy hadn't had a seizure during the oral exam. "Well, now we have the shifter, the senile woman, the prince, and the priest to look at next. Anyone have a preference?"

One of the orderlies, Mersh, raised her hand. "I am quite fond of Mr. Roole's positive outlook."

Without a better option, Berlith shrugged. "Priest it is, then."

* * *

Three of seven patients seen!


	3. Chapter 3

These early chapters are so dreary. I need to get to the humor soon, get the absurdism flowing!

* * *

**Chapter Three**: Uncomfortable and comfortable.

* * *

'They forgot about us.'

'We're going to starve to death.'

'To escape, we just require a weasel.'

"Shush, someone is coming." Malarai Roole spoke for what felt like the first time in days. The orderlies never spoke to him unless he did so first, so after a while, he stopped bothering. He cleared his throat, and tried to straighten his hair for his guests - there seemed to be many of them. He could feel their thoughts press against his own like rolling waves - he was the shore that their loosed thoughts swelled up upon then receded from.

And like a shore, after a long time, the waves had eroded him somewhat.

"How do I look?" He asked of the voices, as he sat prim and proper on his bed, ideally the picture of a Silver Flame priest. However, their responses took the wind out of his sails.

'Your hair is oily like you haven't washed it in weeks.'

'You stink.'

'Remember that a smile is also a threat display.'

Malarai had no time to correct the issues that the voices made him aware of, as the door opened. A khoravar woman, dressed in a cassock with a lab coat over it, with a ludicrously large mane of hair bound up in a net. She was clearly old - her face was heavily wrinkled, her hair in the transition period to grey. But she was also a priestess of the silver flame - he could tell by the style of cassock she wore. It made Malarai forget himself for a moment, and avert his eyes from her.

"Mr. Roole," she said, detached. "I'm taking over for the doctor while she's away. My name is Berlith, and I need to conduct a physical exam to ensure the accuracy of your records. If you could return to your original appearance, please?"

Malarai scratched at his face, the mark on his hand made the itch he felt worse so he switched hands. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm me. I've always been me. I can't be anyone but me." He couldn't tell why it sounded like he wanted to convince himself.

'Liar liar, plants for hire.'

'Look I'm not even mad you're using my face, but own up to it man.'  
'Wait, I'm supposed to be the voice on top.'

"Mr. Roole, I understand you were close to the people in your parish." Berlith, if that was her true name, approached him and tried to look empathetic. It was like she wanted to convey sympathy for someone's loss while she truly didn't care. "But you aren't a red-haired human with a farmer's tan - you haven't been outside in months."

Malarai turned his back wholesale to her to avoid that look. He couldn't bear to see it again. "I don't understand it either, but this is how I look!" He buried his face his hands and pushed against his forehead. It felt like his head wanted to split apart, so he wanted to force it to stay in place. When he finally felt secure enough to look up again, he caught sight of Berlith. She held up a pocket mirror, and he couldn't help but look at himself.

"Is that really you?"

Her question undid him. Malarai was no longer in a featureless room locked away in some castle. He was in the small one-room church of the Silver Flame in a border town. The Thranish peasant armies had spared him and his church, for he was of the same faith. But they were less kind to Dalin. Malarai, lost in the memory, held the ghost-hand of long-dead Dalin and listened to the farmer plead for Malarai to do a miracle - to heal, like the doctors of Jorasco could.

When the self-induced illusion broke, Malarai looked at his hands and they were eerily pale, they lacked fingernails, and he could see his own blood vessels twitch with his heartbeat. The coiling smoke of his mark was visible through his flesh on the other side of his limb.

"That's better, Mr. Roole." Berlith closed the pocket mirror with a definitive snap, then approached him without further fuss.

Malarai was in a sort of neutral state while his exam went on. It was like he was forced to look from his perspective, but lacked control over it. He didn't move from his position unless Berlith made him, and when she moved him he stayed in that new position.

'Okay good, I'm the one on top again.'

'It's okay to be ugly, you know. Ugly people achieve plenty of things in their lives!'

'Hey, now you've stolen my spot!'

"Mr. Roole, you're in perfect health, just a bit skinny. But that's typical for changelings of your age." Berlith positioned Malarai like a doll and had him lay down on his bed. "Your meals from now on will have a bit more fat in them to help you gain some weight." She stood and turned away from him, even as her thoughts crashed over his mind in waves of discontent and disgusted pity. "We will hopefully have some medication to help you differentiate yourself from your parishioner's identity soon."

"Dalin," Malarai croaked. It took all his strength to speak against the wave of Berlith's thoughts. Imagine the shore fighting the tide, and how hard that would be. "His name… was Dalin."

After a lengthy pause, Berlith nodded. "Dalin. I'll make sure that's documented." She walked out of his vision, and the door creaked to indicate she was to leave. Disgusted pity burned away with a touch of silver fire in the next wave of Berlith's thoughts - replaced with a burning obligation. He'd felt that once, the silver fire, the obligation. Why couldn't he feel it anymore, he wondered.

"The other aberrants… they all have families that will want to visit them." Berlith's tone was clearly forced. "Would you like… Dalin's family to visit you?"

Did Dalin have a family? He couldn't recall. Would they hate him? He couldn't recall.

'I'd love to see my family again if they survived.'

'It will do you some good to have closure.'

'I wonder what wax tastes like. … Pleh! Okay, not a good taste!'

"I would like that if they would want to see me."

"Alright." And moments later, the heavy door to his chamber closed and was locked.

* * *

After she'd met with Malarai, Berlith had to take a break. She and the orderlies went down to the great hall, adjacent to the unstaffed kitchens. Berlith made herself some tea in the Thranish style and made sure it was sweetened by a bit of prestidigitation.

Hearing Malarai recite Dalin's last words, pleas for healing that wouldn't come, and a dying curse on the Silver Flame priest who couldn't save him - these had brought back unpleasant memories.

She wasn't a healing mage. Berlith was a holy mage who studied the enemy, found their weaknesses, and documented additional weaknesses to help future warriors. Ideally, she would have spent her time in the archives to help battlefield commanders plan their strikes, but just as often she went with them. Part of being a priestess errant was that she went where she was needed.

More than once, she had gone on a mission with others of the Thranish peasant armies. More than once, she had held men and women, sometimes teens barely old enough to bear a sword's weight, as they died. As she sat with a cup of tea, surrounded by the orderlies as they discussed what they had thought of so far, she couldn't help wonder why she had been so desperate to forget their faces.

Malarai had reminded her.

"There's an open area over the entrance hall, where the trebuchet used to be mounted," one of the orderlies, Julili, brought up. She tapped her pencil against her head, perhaps to highlight how good of an idea she had come up with. "It's too high up for any of the patients to jump from and survive, so we can take them out there for supervised outside time!"

Coolander wagged his finger at the idea. "We can't discount the possibility that they will jump regardless, as a result of desperation. A requisition for mandatory fall-safe equipment must be placed with the artificers, first."

"Miss Ide and Mr. Mankarr also need wheelchairs," Februhaha added as they looked through a journal of the facility's equipment. "The doctor ordered the ones we had on hand to be distributed to injured veterans in the settlement. A publicity stunt that ensured they see us as someone who provides for the community - but also indicative of how she never saw the patients leaving their rooms."

"Requisitioning them from Wroat will take a long time," Adjustus lamented. He held his notepad unsteadily, and Berlith could understand why. His handwriting was poor, and he didn't want to be made fun of for it. "There are a lot of injured soldiers coming home - Jorasco medical equipment will be at a premium price for at least a year."

Berlith was distracted from her demons by the intelligent and substantive discussion that had taken shape between the warforged orderlies. It made her remember - the warforged had been given freedom because of their natural intelligence and capacity for emotion; they were alive, living constructs.

"Tell me," she asked them at length, "what do you make of the patients? Do they seem a threat to you, a burden?"

Her question came in the midst of a discussion about the possibility of nets around the keep to prevent suicides. So naturally, the orderlies were a bit bewildered.

One of the quieter orderlies, Septrippo, responded. Her face was geared for slightly more expression than a normal warforged's, but her expressions didn't follow organic trends. "They are civilians, and they are hurt. Article forty-four of the code of Galifar and section three of the Healers Guild code of conduct require us to prioritize the well-being of non-combatants. Whether they are a threat or not, our obligation is to their welfare."

"Mr. Mankarr isn't a threat to us," Julili added. "We don't have blood, so his power can't affect us. Miss Ide, on the other hand…."

"Having an artificer on-staff would go a long way to helping us feel more secure in working with Miss Ide," Februhaha added when Julili trailed off. "Her rusting powers could easily be repaired then."

"I'll check our budget, perhaps we can arrange to have an artificer here, or in the settlement." Berlith was able to distance herself from unpleasant memories with the conversation, and it put her in a much better mood. "What about the other five patients? None of them concern you?"

"I'm always afraid Nishi is going to hurt himself when he lands," Februhaha admitted with a downturned head. "He's young and springy, but his power doesn't strengthen his shock absorption abilities."

"Plus, more than once he has seized while in the air, or shortly after landing," Coolander pointed out. He wagged his finger again. "Those fall-safe items will be invaluable to him twice-over."

Berlith finished her tea and stood up. "Alright, we've chattered enough. I like these ideas," she emphasized and pointed around to the orderlies. "Write them down, and I'll forward the best ones to the Baron so he can make the requisitions." Her teacup was cleaned off with a touch of another magic ring, for small household functions, then returned to her handbag. "We have more patients to see, however."

* * *

8/5/997

"Mr. Mankarr? The potion drip is set up, we're ready to move your arms."

Mankarr looked at the inverted glass bottle that hung from a repurposed coat rack, from which a thin tube fed into his arm. While two orderlies, Merch and Adjustus, unlocked the leather manacles that held his arms above his head, he wondered what the sparkly purple potion in the tube would taste like.

However, the blinding pain of his stiff shoulders and upper back coming into use made him forget. He hadn't been able to move his arms for a long time, and suddenly having two strong warforged do so for him wrung a cacophonous scream out of him. But once his hands were at his waist again, he could feel the potion and his own regeneration go to work. He would describe it like dozens of ants crawling on the wrong side of his skin.

"Are you okay, Mr. Mankarr?" Poor Merch seemed that orderly was always made to ask the stupid questions.

"A bit of drink, a bit of food, and fifteen minutes on my own and I will be right as rain," the gnome told the metal man with a grin. His grin dimmed somewhat when Adjustus put his hands underneath Mankarr, and Merch grabbed the coat rack. "What's going on?"

"Interim viceroy Berlith has authorized your quarters to be moved," Adjustus said with clear glee. "We are going to place you with the other patients, while your new room is made ready for you."

He hadn't been seen the outside of the room he'd been kept in and was disappointed to find it mostly barren rock. There weren't even guard checkpoints. Borderline insulting, it was. Once upon a time, he'd been considered the most dangerous of all the test subjects - they had given him a code name and were hoping to expand his mark again for a third power. There was also the heaps of straight up torture, but the ones responsible for that had died.

Mankarr liked to think he was plenty spiteful and grudge-holding, but after he'd watched Aejar's daddy come stomping through their original prison and dropping Shadows like they were annoyances, he felt the whole affair settled.

But at least the new viceroy had made them let him wear pants. His own pants, even - from when the Shadows kidnapped him and stole most of his effects. Even though she didn't have the sense to keep them under sentry watch, he liked her for that.

He was carried along without incident other than some sharp spikes of pain from his mark - but the potion drip kept it at bay. And soon enough the orderlies opened a door to the outside. A covered walkway to the keep's donjon. Mankarr looked out through the empty window spaces at the Brelish countryside and saw Sharn far in the distance. He felt the wind on his face and found he had forgotten how warm Breland could be in spring.

The experience ended quickly, as they crossed into the donjon, and a whole suite of new sights to take in was presented to him. The square tower was ringed at several levels with walkways and stairs to connect them, up to the top from which watchers would see invading armies in days of old. Now it had become a sort of miniature library, with college-style study desks pressed to the walls and in rows on the bottom. Comfortable seating had been added, such as lounge sofas, where Mankarr saw the withered old dwarf woman - Ide.

Someone had styled her hair into dwarvish braids - that was good of them. And they'd put her feet up, so they wouldn't swell. She saw Mankarr, waved to him and spoke: "Hello dyadya!"

Mankarr sighed, then ground his teeth as Adjustus set him down into another lounge sofa. He hissed in pain as his marked leg was lifted to have pillows laid down underneath it. But once it was done, he could tell he was much more comfortable than he would be without the padding. "Thank you, my fine metal men," he told the orderlies with false cheer. "Dare I hope we are allowed to read the books?"

Merch nodded. "The interim viceroy has said you may even request books to take back to your rooms, and that they are going to restore the old printing press so they can make multiple copies of popular books." The excitable orderly clapped their hands and held them to their face afterward - in mimicry of a gesture Mankarr had once shown them sarcastically. "Isn't that exciting?"

"It is," the gnome agreed while Adjustus tossed a plush throw pillow over his lower half. Even with pants, hospital gowns weren't meant to retain warmth so Mankarr was appreciative. "I find that, having never met her I like her more than half my family." Something was off about what he'd said - the words felt wrong in his mouth so he reflected a moment. "Wait, have I met her? Was she that bizarre khoravar woman with the enormous hair?"

"Yes!" Merch did the excited clapping thing again. "Oh, and you probably want a book to read, yeah?" The orderly tapped their head and considered. "Let's start with the latest copy of the Chronicle, they have a catalog with new books being published this year, we could pre-order some for you."

Merch and Adjustus left for the bookshelves, and after a few minutes examination, they were forced to go up to another level in pursuit of the news journal.

And with them gone, Mankarr reclined in the sofa, and enjoyed a fresh view for the first time in… he realized he would not know the exact time until he saw the date in the news journal. It had clearly been a long time, given how long his hair had grown. Ide was occupied with a hallucination - she acted like there was dog near her. But she spoke of oil, and polishing - perhaps the old artificer spoke to the memory of her homunculus?

"I don't suppose you know if they made it?" He asked her, for there was no one else to ask. He didn't want to sound desperate - but she had been the only other test subject he'd seen, he hoped she had seen or failed to see, the others.

"No, I made it," Ide said with a good-natured smile. "Dyadya, I'm a smith like you now!"

Mankarr sighed again. Then he noticed that there was a shadow over his sofa. When he looked up, there was a figure that blocked his light. It made him frown, for he recognized the shape. "Oh… I'd hoped you got away."

A burly man stepped more clearly into Mankarr's view. Tanned skin, heavily haired arms, mutton chops and long hair blonde like gold - and a mark of sickly green that was only visible a bit on his foot. Beastial features on a roughly human shape - like a cross between a man and a hobgoblin; a shifter. He had an improvised blade in one hand and loomed over the gnome.

"Oh, the viceroy let you wear trousers?" Mankarr arched an eyebrow. "That must be nice."

"It is," the shifter, Weir, said. "Pants, trousers, and a shirt too. I forgot what it was like to walk around without a draft." There was plenty of room on the sofa, given how small Mankarr was, so there was no obstacle when the shifter sat down on it too. "Thora got away."

Mankarr smiled a little and tried not to look smug. "She's going to never let you forget that when you get out too." Up close, he could see that the shifter looked good for their captivity. Clearly, the gnome's mandated bed-rest was not the norm. "How did she slip by, and not you?"

"I came back for Nishi." Weir shrugged and threw his arm over the back of the sofa where Mankarr rested. "I knew if I came back for you and got caught, you'd get mad. So I tried to bust Nishi out instead."

"You know me so well." Mankarr grinned and for once didn't use it to hide anything. He used the implicit invitation Weir had given him to scoot his torso, bad leg, and pillow supports, to better fit against the shifter's side. "How close did you come to getting him out?"

"Iunno, like a little under a minute left on his door, and I'd have gotten through." Weir's arm came down off the back of the sofa to squish the gnome against him for a moment. "And after I got the kid home, I would have come back for the rest of y'all."

"I would honestly wish you luck getting Ide or Vaedo home." Mankarr used his head to indicate the poor old woman. "They'd probably get you caught at least once."

"Dyadya, stop hugging the bears, you'll give the neighbors weird notions," Ide chided and shook her finger at the duo on the other sofa.

"See?" Mankarr looked up at Weir and leaned into him. "Your humble origins don't prepare you for this sort of thing - but you're so heroic you'd get out. Maybe with a scar or a missing leg. But still."

Weir arched a bushy brow and held up the curved blade. "Being a barber teaches you to be good with blades, you know - so I could fight my way out. Speaking of which, want me to trim you up?"

"That depends, how bad does the 'bedraggled prisoner' vibe look on me?" Mankarr struck his most 'Imma rebel' pose, hard to do when he was sitting, but he made due.

"Long hair looks good on you, actually." Weir's response was unexpected. "But I'm biased." He took a section of his own long hair and ran it through his fingers. "Clean it up, braid it, and you'd look pretty… well, pretty." He tapped the blade to Mankarr's cheek. "But the beard definitely needs trimming."

Mankarr felt his beard and noted how heavily knotted it was. Ugh. He gave the green light for the trim and leaned his head back. "Where did you even get a blade?"

Weir shifted so that he could use what limited magic a barber needed in conjunction with the blade to begin the trim. "I made it. The orderlies said it didn't pose a threat to them, so they don't care that I have it since my mark doesn't put me at risk of suicide." For some odd reason, the shifter always used water, even though there was no shaving cream for the water to help. Perhaps it was a habit. "The viceroy let me keep it when she found it." He smirked. "Because she doesn't want me desperately scrabbling for weapons."

"You're banking on her not having a dragonmark," Mankarr singsonged. "She'll skull-tingle any time you try to take her out."

"Medani dragonmarked people are rare - they're one of the smallest Houses. It's a safe wager that she's unmarked." For a while after that, the only sound was the scrape of a blade through hair and across skin. Weir's hands were still steady despite how ill at ease he clearly was.

Mankarr could tell by the way Weir would steal a glance at the gnome's bad leg. He could tell by the way he froze any time Mankarr took a deep breath. He could tell by the way Weir would gingerly touch the potion drip tube as if it were delicate glass.

"I don't like her, but I don't dislike her either. She let them help you, got you to stop screaming all the time." Weir nicked Mankarr accidentally, but by the time he cleaned off the blood the wound had healed perfectly. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Make me look good, and I'll forgive you." The gnome winked.

Weir found it less amusing, but he continued to cut at the green hair professionally. By the time the orderlies came back, a considerable amount of Mankarr's bear had found itself shorn off and deposited in a wastebasket. They came back to the scene of the shifter barber using minor acts of prestidigitation to tend to the bard's hair.

Mankarr had forgotten he'd wanted to read the Chronicle. So it was pleasant to have a distraction while Weir worked his wonders, in the form of a whetstone of the mind. "Karrnath advocates lasting peace, Thrane is tyrannically crushing their populace, Aundair hungers for war in every way except with action, and Cyre appears to have dropped off the face of the world." After a few minutes to skim, Mankarr turned to look over his shoulder at Weir. "Are we sure we're still on Eberron?"

"Good to know, even if you consider this an alternate universe, Breland is still Breland." Weir finished the overlapping braid he had decided on for Mankarr's hair, then rejoined him for another cuddle. "Flip to the gossip section, I want to see if Prince Jurian finally got stabbed or not."

* * *

Prince Jurian: wandering dandy, consumate layabout, moocher extradorinaire, a spy on his extended family, and really kind of a jerk has actually been stabbed eleven times. It's barely newsworthy anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

The first thread of the main plot arrives! And dangit, we still haven't gotten to meet patient seven!

* * *

**Chapter Four:** To see, or not to see.

* * *

9/5/997.

Berlith, on reflection, found the record-keeping for the Keep to be insufficient. For starters, the Glyphstone for which the Keep had been built had been moved and no one thought to write down _where to_. From the records on renovations that predated Medani's rental agreement, she hazarded a guess that it was in the lower vaults. Somewhere. Secondarily, all the staff sketches were out of date - the warforged orderlies all had the same sketch applied to them, she could tell because the rune on the sketch's head was Coolander's. Warforged weren't easy for her to tell apart, the mark of detection helped as did their different voices, but on visuals alone, she had to consciously look for things.

And thirdly, there was no documentation on the methods used by the Citadel to expand the marks of their prisoners. Without knowledge of how it had been done, the lab staff would have to waste time puzzling it out to stop further expansion. So far only the aging artificer - Ide, the current Kundarak patriarch's grandmother - and the halfling child had not had their marks expand. However, while Malarai's mark had expanded, the power tied to that expansion wasn't documented - the Citadel hadn't had time to find out.

In her office, at her desk, Berlith looked at the prince's file again. The sketch they had of him was when he was a boy - before he had been mauled by one of his father's pet tigers. Officially, Aejar ir'Wynarn had died as a result of the injuries, but seemingly the Citadel had swiped him from his hospital bed shortly afterward. The prince represented the only success in the Citadel's attempts to induce an aberrant dragonmark where one hadn't existed before.

She didn't want to update the sketch - but there was no justifiable reason to keep the old sketch when they all had to be updated. Berlith sided and cracked open the ledger, to see if there was enough money in the Keep account to afford an artist's commission. With all the budgeting that would need to be done for the month ahead, there was not.

The back of her head tingled, and it traveled down her hand to her fingertips. Specifically, her ring finger which she saw rested on Mankarr's file. The gnome was a bard… perhaps he was trained in the traditional arts? There was no mention of it in his file, but that didn't preclude the possibility.

She would have to ask.

* * *

Mankarr found himself in a wonderful position, not too long after he got his new room. It was in the northernmost tower, second in height to the donjon, and had a bay window which Mankarr could sit in. That was where he had been when he was visited by the esteemed interim viceroy for the facility. She had a simple question: was he trained in the art of drawing. He was, but alas, he was a gnome. And no gnome out of their baby teeth ever gave someone a straight answer, as the saying went. Mankarr knew he had given plenty of straight answers in his life, the key was to frame them in such a way that they didn't _appear_ to be straight.

"Why would you ask if I have training in classical arts?" Mankarr reclined his head against a tubular pillow that Septrippo provided. With the light, he could appreciate the inclusions of white in her metallic body segments. Bone fragments. He couldn't remember how he knew the reason, but he knew it. It gave Septrippo a sort of starry appearance.

"Something simple, that needs to be done and would justify an expense I'm sure you would enjoy," the elderly khoravar woman said with a heavily guarded expression. She had that look of indomitability about her that Mankarr found insufferable. Like she could just walk through a barricade without slowing down. "If you had the skills, I could provide artistic materials." Berlith looked down her nose at Mankarr, though there wasn't much nose to look down. "You would provide a service, sketches for your file and the other patient's, as they are out of date. What you do with the materials afterward is your business."

The gnome wanted to make a snide remark, but his mark flared to life and he doubled over from the searing pain. It dulled soon afterward as the boiling blood in his veins calmed in response to positive energy. When he recovered, he witnessed Berlith wipe her hand with one of those fancy disposable handkerchiefs that came in a box. "I don't think the mark is infectious," he said with a smug grin to hide the hurt.

"We aren't certain of that yet," she said and disposed of the handkerchief into the wastebasket. Her hair was so large, her expressions weren't discernable unless she looked at him in profile at least. "And even if we were, you were drooling."

With sudden alarm, Mankarr became aware of the wet spot on his hospital gown - and the saliva on his lower jaw. He'd grit his teeth against the pain for too long, it seemed. "You needn't have put your hand there…."

"Yes, or no?" The khoravar woman turned and fixed her gaze on Mankarr. He couldn't move or look away, such was its strength. "There are other things in dire need of doing around this facility, and I would appreciate it if you could tell me if you can help with this."

Gnome nature and the dark-skinned woman's complete control of the situation battled, so Mankarr quickly looked for an out. His mind worked behind his facade of safety and devil-may-care flippancy. The good doctor had been sweetness until she got an answer she didn't like. The same could be true of Berlith. "If you asked it of me," he said, delicately, "I could do this for you. Depending on the materials provided. Ink and graphite would certainly help."

Berlith was only two feet taller than Mankarr, but at that moment she towered over him like the goblinoid mountain-statues from thousands of years ago. Without further discussion, the khoravar turned and left the gnome with his orderly for the day.

* * *

14/5/997

A few days later, Mankarr was brought to the donjon again, and there was a new item there that he could tell was meant for him long before his orderly set him down in front of it: a drawing board.

Mankarr hadn't been in front of a drawing board in a long, _long_ time. It was like meeting an old friend again. For the first few minutes since Februhaha had set him on a chair before the board, all he did was touch it. It was sized for a dwarf, so the holders for pens and ink were just outside his comfortable reach, but he didn't care. "Nine years," he said, relaxed, "since I was able to be an artist. But I still recognize this work." He stretched behind the drawing board, and he could just barely feel the maker's mark: a wedding cake. "Yes! Old Cake's work! Is he still alive?"

Februhaha paused in setting up the colored inkwells for Mankarr's artistic venture. In another world, Februhaha would have made a wonderful guardian of a library, intimidating to look at with optical lenses of burning red but surprisingly soft hands padded in leather. There was even a notch in their nose where Mankarr could imagine glasses resting. "The manufacturer is based out of New Cyre, where it used to be out of Sharn. I don't know who 'Cake' is, but this board is only a year old."

Mankarr accepted this and scooted around in his seat to try and get comfortable. Then he noticed the sheer volume of artistic supplies assembled for his use. A three-tiered side-table of inks, a selection of quills, graphite pencils, and other Cake-brand art supplies. "Neiva's bells, the viceroy went all out on this stuff."

Februhaha uncapped a well of 'Karrnath Red' and set it down on the tiered side-table. "Beggar Dane once said that while medicine will keep one alive, without art who would want to live?" The genderless living construct then went upstairs and brought back a box of paper. "Hemp paper will suffice?"

"Of course, of course!" Mankarr opened the box and began to fit the pages into the drawing board like he was a decade younger, and still a carefree artist. "Sit down, sit down. Three-quarters profile would be preferable." As soon as he clipped the leather corner-covers down on top of a stack of paper, he looked over to see that Februhaha had not done as he instructed. Oh no, that wouldn't do at all. "Well come on, you're too tall for me to crane my neck and look at you for how long this will take. Don't want me to develop a crick, do you?"

Februhaha tilted their head and rested their hands on their hips. The leather on their hands padded them against noisy clangs. "Now come on, Mr. Mankarr. There's no need for us orderlies to have sketches in our files. We all look the same."

Now annoyed, Mankarr pointed at the chair meant for the subject's sketches. He scowled and offered no more words, only gestures.

With a heavy sigh, Februhaha sat down and became the first subject of Mankarr's drawings.

Mankarr depicted them with glasses in the nasal notch he had noticed, hooded robes of green, with embroidery the same shade of red as their optics. They sat upon a throne of books, with another in their hands. His unique style of drawing - dots of varying size and distance for colors and shading - stunned the orderly.

Februhaha looked at the finished product, careful not to touch it while the ink dried. They rubbed the mark on their forehead - the unique rune that was the mark of life, their 'ghulra'. "You got it right," they said, amazed.

Mankarr smiled and bade them to get the other orderlies. They would serve excellently as practice.

Coolander came next, the head orderly, their number one. Mankarr made sure to capture his gleaming permanently polished head and the tiger-stripe layering in his steel. He was depicted as a fashionista, with the latest outfit from Sharn's tailors.

Janulerry followed, demure as always. She was unique in two ways, she had no metal in her construction - purely wood and obsidian - and her hands had four digits to the usual three. Mankarr drew her surrounded by flowers, vines that grew around her and flowered in a crown around her head. After her came Merch, happy and a bit dim. Mankarr drew them in the many-layered white dress, like a doll he had once seen, to draw out how dainty and cheerful they were.

Apelel had to be ordered to sit for his portrait, persnickety as he was. The largest of the orderlies, and covered in adamantine plates, Mankarr had no trouble depicting him like a juggernaut in the act of walking through a wall. Mankarr was informed afterward that Apelel had been marked for a juggernaut refit before Jorasco had bought him - the taciturn warforged actually smiled at his portrait.

Warforged smiles were horrifying to see - they opened their mouths, and the rows of metal plates that led to absolute darkness was simply not pleasant to look at. Mankarr used that horror for his next subject, Maize - the creepy one. The lanky warforged delighted in macabre subjects and had dimmed the lights of their optics to make them resemble black pits. Perhaps it was the darkwood in their construction. His portrait was simple: Maize seated as they appeared, their orderly whites replaced with Karrnathi fashion, and a sword made to resemble bone in their hand. They called it 'cute'.

"That one always gives me agita," Mankarr muttered while he tried to rub the goosebumps off his arms while Maize left. The current of warm air which came from the door and went up to the top of the tower helped a little. When he looked up, he found that the lighting in the donjon had shifted - no longer radiant, but orange and darker. Had he worked for the whole day? He hadn't stopped for meals or the privy!

"I believe he's realized how long it has been," said the viceroy as she stepped into Mankarr's field of view. The elderly khoravar crossed her arms and stepped such that her boots would 'clack' against the floor noticeably. "I respect your work ethic, but in the future, you will keep to your schedule. The orderlies and the rest of the staff will be added to the schedule since you're so keen on their appearances being documented."

Mankarr could make out faint pockmarks in Berlith's face as she leaned over the drawing table to look down at him. He then revised that - not pockmarks, but faint freckles. Were she not in her position of power, he might have found that endearing.

"And, if after all that you still crave to portray people, I will permit you to open yourself to commissions from the settlement. The money you earn will be deposited into a trust account and delivered to you in full on your release." Berlith stood, either unaware or uncaring about the bomb she had dropped, and 'clacked' her way to the door.

Mankarr's breathing had become ragged, his mask almost slipped, but he slipped back into his smarmy tone as he turned and called out to her. "Could you clarify something, I thought I heard you say 'on your release.'"

The door heaved as Berlith continued on her way a moment, then paused on the other side. "His Majesty the king has ordered that once your marks are better understood, and your control over their powers is guaranteed, you all may return to your families as free men, women, and people of unspecified gender." She kept her back to Mankarr, and again her hair blocked his view. "You aren't prisoners," the 'yet' went unsaid, "and it was foolish for you to be treated as such. Enjoy your supper, Mr. Tomraan. It's fish fillets tonight."

Without further discussion, the gnome watched Berlith clack away, even while Februhaha and Janulerry moved in to get him ready to go back to his room.

* * *

"Miss Vaedo, are you sure you want your food to get cold?"

The Tairnadal elf ignored the pleas of the metal man, Adjustus, for he was a worry-wort and she had routines to perform.

Once, a decade ago, she had been a warrior. Not one of the great warriors, but a warrior all the same. She had fought alongside her warclan, she had cared for her horse like he was her brother. For all that to be true again, she had to regain her physical prowess.

The room she had been moved to was large. Her footsteps, padded by silk socks and decades of training in stealth, echoed to her ears. The heavy warforged like Adjustus made a clamor in the room's acoustics.

Vaedo trained. She stretched, ran the length of the room, arranged her furniture for obstacles so that she could run it. There was not much furniture - Adjustus said they would get more from the local carpenters, tall ones so that Vaedo would have to leap higher. The worrying warforged said as he watched her move he almost forgot she was blind. That was partly why she wanted more furniture, to clutter the room, so that she would have to learn how to adjust to different conditions.

She sat on her bottom, stretched her legs, and placed her left hand upon the ground. She threw her right leg over her left, pushed with her hand, and drew in her leg to spin. Like a little top, she spun.

"Is… that a Valenar training thing?" Adjustus asked as he stamped over to where Vaedo span. "It looks fun."

It was. "It's not meant to be fun, it is meant to train disorientation." It was _so incredibly fun_. "It's a stepping stone to further exercises which are geared toward control of disorientation and momentum." They were ridiculously fun to pull off. Vaedo had used them for dance techniques before the war.

"Still, it looks fun." Adjustus' hands clinked together, which he did when he was nervous. "Could you teach me?"

Instinct's purpose is to keep someone alive, not to help make decisions. She pushed aside the instinct to refuse out of hand as she pushed off the ground to stand. A drop of compassion or shared history could give her the pause she needed to escape. Without concern, she grabbed Adjustus' arms and moved them about to get a general feel of the weight in his limbs.

"A bit heavy, but with some padding, you can pull this off no problem. For now, watch what I do." She tried to gesture to her eyes with two fingers, then point to his.

Adjustus raised her hand so that the gesture was correctly positioned. "Okay, I'll watch."

An investment, she told herself. Like kindness to wolves who would guard her sleep. When she could get a blade, she would be free. But until then, she would teach a four hundred pound man made out of steel, wood, and volcanic glass how to spin about on his bottom and lament that she couldn't see it once he got it right.

_If_ he got it right.

* * *

17/5/997.

The settlement outside Glyphstone Keep was more or less done. Individual homesteads had still to be built, but the local economy had grown enough that shops had come to the proto-urban area outside the Keep. A florist had come to the settlement, to provide seeds for crops and offer advice to the new homesteaders. A smithy soon followed, and after that came a beastmaster.

The smithy had expected to shoe horses and make nails for quite a while. Imagine her surprise when a panoply of warforged soldiers came to her in hopes of repairs, a couple even asked to apprentice under her. The settlement faired better than expected, given the state of things.

But it wasn't going to last forever.

The settlement wasn't large, the first generation settlers totaled near five hundred, a third of which couldn't produce children. It hadn't even gotten a name yet, or a mayor. It was decided by higher powers that such a state of affairs was intolerable.

On the seventeenth of Dravago, a stylish carriage drawn by four horses graced the proto-form suburban town accompanied by four riders. The riders were armored, and their horses were unarmored, so the soldiers of the settlement could identify them as dragoons - soldiers who rode to battle and then dismounted to fight. However the carriage was not meant for combat - it had the look of something meant for city streets and dainty outings - the wheels, once graceful and sleek, were coated in mud from the road.

More than one career soldier expected some jumped up nobleman to step out, once the carriage stopped near the crossroads. Perhaps someone from a dragonmarked House. That sentiment only grew stronger when, once the carriage stopped, a set of steps sprung out from underneath the door.

Once the personage inside was revealed, there could not have been more egg on the gossiping veteran's faces if they headbutted a hen house.

From the carriage emerged a khoravar woman - fair skinned, her head held high and proud, red hair that had begun to grey pulled back in a bun, and covered in a silk veil. For a person of her status, she wore little jewelry - a duo of pink pearls that hung from her ears, a simple diamond ring on her left hand, a merchant would have more! She wore a cloak of Breland blue with bear's fur at the collar, significantly out of season, but the pale blue dress with a fabric belt underneath was more appropriate for spring.

The soldiers of the settlement recognized her immediately, for a younger version of her decorated the Breland silver piece - Shatzi ir'Wynarn, the queen mother. While she dismounted, she waved her hand limply in the way nobles were trained to respond to people's greetings - some of the older soldiers greeted her arrival, and some even referred to her as 'majesty', borderline illegal flattery.

Her first thought, when she saw the settlement's most urban section, was not flattering but she kept them to herself. 'Maybe in fifty years, it will be worth the money Medani spent on it.'

After she had left her carriage, a tortoiseshell cat followed after her, tail up and crooked at the tip. Behind the cat followed seven kittens that walked behind their mother in a line, who in turn followed the khoravar woman. All the kittens and their mama had Breland blue leather collars with little heart-shaped tags.

The queen mother's dragoons split up - two to guard her carriage, and two followed after her. So the train was a five-foot naught khoravar woman, a mama cat, seven kittens, and two heavily armored soldiers upon their war-trained horses. T'was an odd parade, but the soldiers found it enjoyable all the same.

They enjoyed it more when the queen mother would stop any time one of the kittens broke the line to investigate something or someone that interested them, and only started again when the mama cat called the kitten back to the line. Thus, the parade took a while to get anywhere.

The cliffs that overlooked the conflux of the Howling and Dagger rivers was their destination. No houses had been built that close to the Keep yet, so it was sparsely forested grassland. Only the tips of the kittens' tails were visible through the tall grass until they came to the cliffs. Shatzi took a spot on the cliff, with the mama cat beside her, and the kittens in a row beside their mama. The mounted dragoons also took up a spot alongside the kittens.

"Wait," one dragoon whispered to the other. "Why did we get right up to the cliffs with them?"

Her fellow dragoon shrugged her shoulders and produced a ruckus from the heavy clanging. "The queen was doing it, and so were the cats, so I just assumed…." Fortunately, their faces were hidden by armor so no one could see their embarrassment.

"See, Gilla, this is why I want you to stop and _think_ before you do things." The first dragoon pinched her armored fingers together. "Just a little bit. Think. Before you do things."

Gilla huffed and put her hands on her hips. "Hey, you did it too!"

"Yes," the other dragoon admitted then jabbed her finger in Gilla's face. "But I recognized it was silly first."

"Ahem." A new voice came into the conversation. Both dragoons turned to see the queen mother's eyes on them, the mama cat's eyes on them, and the kitten's eyes following a butterfly. The queen arched an eyebrow and made a spiral gesture with her manicured hand. "Are you done chattering, or can we get back to ominously overlooking the cliffs?"

"Sorry, highness." Both the dragoons said at once. "We'll be quiet."

"There's a time for chatter, and it's after we freak out whoever is looking out the Keep's southern windows at this moment." Shatzi wagged her finger at her guards and turned with the mama cat to overlook the cliffs, toward the Keep's southern windows.

Meanwhile, in the Keep, most of the staff were focused on the northern section. Those who weren't studying for the Healer's Guild certification were focused around Nishi's new room. True to her word, Berlith had gotten the halfling boy a room with windows. Barred windows. And he had gotten his head stuck in between them somehow. Two of the orderlies went at the bars with nail files to free the halfling, while the viceroy had her face in her hands at the absurdity of the situation.

Back to the queen mother, she nodded her head. "Alright. They've been psychologically intimidated. Let's find a spot to have construction on the chateau started." Shatzi spun and trudged away from the cliffs, followed by the mama cat, her kittens, and the dragoons. The mama cat meowed to complain, and Shatzi scoffed. "Of course we'll kill all the hawks around here - can't have them swooping on the kittens, can we?"

At that precise moment, a hawk descended to steal a kitten away and found itself held fast in the jaws of Gilla's horse. It soon discovered that horses were surprisingly okay with eating meat. Poultry in that specific case.

_Crunch._

"Venezuela!" Gilla chided her horse with an exasperated tone. "You'll ruin your supper!"

* * *

Per feedback, I'm upping the descriptions across the board. Doesn't feel right just yet, but I will get better!


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**: Watch from afar.

* * *

19/5/997.

It was a pleasant day. Birds were singing outside, in the tree whose branches brushed the window. The sun was partially obscured by fluffy clouds - the perfect ratio of darkness and illumination to please a majority of people. In the bustling dwarven city of Korunda Gate, the citizens were happy to spend their gold in droves on such a day.

Which, in turn, meant that businesses would come to the fortress-like bank of House Kundarak to deposit their revenue lest thieves get _ideas_. Lord Morrikan d'Kundarak, the House patriarch, handled the affairs of the House as a whole and a handful of important accounts, but his position of prominence within a continent-wide banking system allowed him to watch out the window of his office and ponder things.

Splayed out on a desk of carved and polished granite were several accounts - namely those of national governments. Karrnath, Cyre - may the poor souls find rest - Aundair, Breland, Thrane...all these and more were arrayed for his perusal.

Lord actually was his name - Morrikan was his second name, but the humans found 'Lord' so pretentious a first name that the patriarch was all but forced to ignore it. Dwarves, over the hundreds of years that they had been vassals to human kings, had to make a lot of concessions to human sensibilities. Even the fashion which Lord Morrikan wore was human-influenced - a coif combined with a circlet of gold lined in gemstones, a thick coat of yellow gambeson over a tunic, breeches that tucked into boots. Dwarves were most at home surrounded by stone and metal, and even now that they were free to rule themselves, deference to humans had become a tradition.

Morrikan wished he could speak the words 'damn tradition' out loud, just once. But that would ruin his career as his House's leader. He scratched his beard - short and pale by dwarf beardly standards - and turned on his swivel chair to better see the birds flit about outside. A century and change old - and he led the richest dragonmarked House of them all. If he ruled well, he could stay in his position for centuries more. Perhaps his children would become the de-facto Lords-slash-Ladies Kundarak after his death, the start of a dynasty. Nothing which threatened that could be tolerated.

Least of all the kidnapping, torture, and death of identity that had befallen Morrikan's own grandmother by the Brelish government.

The news would reach their king soon, and then that king would send his ambassadors to find what had caused such a change in fortunes. Morrikan couldn't admit the real reason, Bornael couldn't admit the real reason - so a lie would need to be thought up to explain the situation to the gazettes. Something to explain the outright audit, and severe increase of war debt interest.

As Lord of House Kundarak, as the account manager for the Brelish government, there was no one but him who could have made the decision. It wasn't good business, but it was an excellent vengeance.

The birds flitted away, and so the patriarch had no distraction from his work. He leaned back and spun about to return to the accounts. "Breland's doing the best out of all the remaining big five," Morrikan told himself as he disdainfully cast the bear-marked folder aside. "If left unchecked, their economic dominance would lead to actual dominance. It's just a measure to ensure the overall health of the Khorvaire economy."

A measure that wiped out thirty years of economic growth overnight. That thought still made Lord Morrikan smile.

* * *

At night, when the fleshlings were asleep, the warforged in the settlement and the Keep would find things to pass the time. Spring would soon give way to summer, and the days would be longer. It was decided that a night-time activity would be arranged for the orderlies to spend their free time on, something that would scale up with time when winter nights were longer.

Janulerry had taken Merch, Septrippo, and Juln with her on an evening adventure to plant four hundred sapling trees that Medani had purchased as an investment for the future. This left Februhaha in charge, as Coolander was in need of repairs. Earlier that day, Miss Ide had brushed his head with her hand and caused extensive damage.

With seven other orderlies to see to, Februhaha decided that their best bet was to do something interesting - but everyone had different interests. Februhaha deeply enjoyed the literature available in the donjon library - but Apelel didn't, he enjoyed fleshling sports. In the acting head orderly's opinion, Apelel just liked that no fleshling sports player could so much as slow him down.

In the great hall, each of the warforged orderlies still actively engaged in some leftover work - and Februhaha observed them to find their after-work activity. Octulary, who alone among the orderlies had all-terrain spider legs installed in place of a normal lower body, mended holes in the clothes of the patients with thread and needles. Fleshlings unfamiliar with the spider-forged's unique role were surprised at how quietly the eight arthropod legs were as they moved. Equipped with clawed toes and spherical rollers, the all-terrain spider legs were meant to turn a warforged into a dangerous assassin which could strike from any angle.

With surgical precision, the spider-forged made up for their three-digit hands. It was good that the viceroy had forbidden Octulary from ever seeing to Miss Ide on the rotations - an incident like what had happened to Coolander would be even worse for a specialty warforged.

The organizing warforged approached their spider-forged compatriot, and asked them directly: "What would you like to do tonight?"

Octulary paused in the mending of one of Weir's socks to think about their response. Up close, Februhaha was reminded that the spider-forged didn't have two large optics like themself and others - Octulary had four small optics clustered together in each of the sockets. The spider-forged returned to its mending. "I would like to make something."

Februhaha put their hands on their hips and would have scowled if their face was as articulate as Septrippo's. "I need a bit more detail than that. Is the thing you want to make a physical object or an experience?"

Octulary's sock repair didn't cease while it answered this time. "There really isn't a distinction between those two things. An experience requires physical objects - usually, those who experience it - and the creation of an object is often considered an experience too." The sock was repaired, set aside, and its twin picked up for repairs. Shifter finger and toenails grew toward points rather than human curves. "Fleshlings tend to use that description when they attempt to make new fleshlings."

"Well, we can't make more of us - none of us have the required expertise or the dragonmark of making to power a creation forge." Februhaha ground their hand against their chin as they had seen fleshlings do, with noisier results. "Though Miss Ide knows how to make warforged."

"I'm uninterested in warforged production, it was merely an example." The spider-forged gestured with their needle-holding hand. "I'm interested in textile production."

This was more reasonable and gave Februhaha an idea. "Hemp grown in the settlement can be used to make fabric - I will obtain some of the next harvest, and we can make textiles for you to work on."

A curt nod was all the eight-eyed, eight-legged, crawling metal people-minder gave in the way of a reply. A little rude, but perhaps it had been rude for Februhaha to demand an answer of them.

Regardless, the acting head orderly moved on.

Maize, the bizarre one, had found half of a hawk outside the Keep. Something had eaten it, and he wanted to find out what it was - so he hurried to plan the rotations for which orderlies looked after which patients. Februhaha was happy to see that Maize wasn't so distracted that he let the hawk's blood get onto the papers, at least.

"Maize," Februhaha said to get the male-leaning warforged's attention. "Do you want to participate in a group activity tonight? If so, what sort of activity would you like to-"

"Well," the black-eyed warforged responded, and held up a pen from the schedules, "I believe Weir will attempt to sneak out of his room tonight. We might observe him, and see how his escape attempts work."

The more conventional warforged disabled then re-enabled their optics to mimic the fleshling gesture of blinking. "If you suspected such a thing, why didn't you tell the viceroy?"

Maize shrugged and went back to scheduling. "I don't think he'll try to escape the facility, he is likely practicing for a bigger escape attempt later on."

Naturally, this was a wildly unsatisfactory answer, but Februhaha got the feeling that further explanations in the same vein would be even more so. "So, what makes you think Weir is going to sneak out?"

The creepy warforged tapped the metal surrounding his eye sockets. "I watched where Weir watched. When Juln and I changed his water, he kept his eyes on the keys - specifically the one for his room. He will try to use the key's shape to better pick the lock. Then he asked about Mr. Mankarr." Maize clanged his hands together in a series of short claps, similar to how Merch would behave. "I suspect he intends to have a romantic visit with Mr. Mankarr now that their confinement is less severe."

Februhaha covered their optics with their hand and sighed. "You're jumping to conclusions. Even if Weir was plotting to escape tonight as practice, why would he risk going to visit Mr. Mankarr? Mr. Mankarr's power could go off on him, and then we'd find out."

Maize took a moment to stare at his superior, then responded. "For a medically optimized unit, you don't seem to understand fleshlings very well."

Confused, and a little annoyed, the acting head orderly huffed. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Do you know what the phrase 'bow chicka bow wow' means?" Maize patiently waited for thirty seconds, and kept his schedule work going during that time. "Then you don't know them well enough. Maybe we should all go watch, it'll be educational for everyone."

Februhaha, still huffy from Maize's impertinence, made a foolish decision. "Alright, we will! And you will see that you made rash assumptions about fleshling behavior too." The acting head orderly stomped out of the great hall and left everyone else to their work. Februhaha went to the security office to set up the viewing session.

The security office looked like a dusty room, with furniture covered in cloth to prevent dust, and was located on the west side of the castle on the second floor. Sconces in the shape of hands holding candles provided dim light via everburning torches. However, there was no candle held in one sconce hand - this one was pulled upon by Februhaha. With a click and a hiss, the wall split apart and pulled forward. Obsidian mirrors perfectly cut into squares lined the inside of the wall, and the space they had hidden. At the center was a pedestal with a smoky-quartz orb on a cushion.

Unbeknownst to Februhaha, a small orb watched the warforged as they examined the crystal ball and the mirrors. It resembled an eye, about an inch wide, and floated along outside the balcony windows for the security room. The curtains hadn't been replaced yet - moths had gotten to them.

The eye watched as Februhaha set up the mirrors to all show three locations. The left mirrors showed Weir floating about in the pool which occupied most of his room, the right showed the hallway outside Mankarr's room, and the middle showed the inside of Mankarr's room.

Weir's room was once a nobleman's bath chamber, with some alterations. All of Breland blue tile, with faux gold for details. The pool, for what rich man would settle for a tub, was filled with water from the Howling River and drained perpetually so that the water would remain oxygenated. Alcoves around the side of the pool were filled with spaces for Weir's possessions. And the once ornate door had been replaced with a heavy, metal gate. Bars lined the interior and exterior of the circular window at the far end.

No doubt Mankarr would have loved such a room. Without a wheelchair to move around in his own, he had to stay where he was placed. While Weir floated around in his pool, Mankarr slept with his leg cushioned and a potion drip in his arm.

Behind the magical floating eye, the queen mother hmmed to herself in her carriage. It was quite larger on the inside than on the outside - magic was wonderful - and so she had plenty of space to herself and for her cats. "I don't recall the shifter having green pebbly skin on his extremities or webbed digits." Her eyebrows shot up when she watched the shifter yawn. "And he certainly didn't have chompers that a dinosaur would envy."

Meanwhile, Februhaha went back and gathered the remaining orderlies for their nightly escapade - they were going to watch Maize be proven wrong, and Februhaha right!

Novembem, a warforged scout, was the smallest orderly and yet the most physically powerful due to unique dwarven martial arts she had been taught. She was dwarf-like in stature, at two-thirds the average human's height, yet lanky like a halfling. Most of her construction was wood, though she had metal armored joints, digits, and as her skullcap. Because of this, she was light enough to sit on the cloth-covered bed, a much-desired spot among the other orderlies.

After Octulary had been squeezed through, the orderlies sat down for a long night of people watching. Februhaha sat on the floor along with the other main-production warforged, and held the crystal ball to maintain the observation.

Similarly, the queen mother's arcane observer watched them people watch.

Just as Shatzi was about to end her spell, something happened. Weir suddenly lept from the pool to the door, and crouched over the lock.

"Heh," Maize said, vindicated.

Februhaha ground their toothless upper and lower jaws against each other. "Alright, you were right about his escape attempt. But we don't know that he can get out, or that he will go to Mr. Mankarr's room."

In short order, Weir had his door open, though he had to brute force it a little. Adjustus, the one who had installed that door, sighed at the work he would have to do to fix it. After that, Februhaha changed the Weir's room view to the hallway outside. Sure enough, Weir had bolted so quickly that they needed to change views again.

The warforged watched Weir run through the Keep, up until he got to the hallway outside Mankarr's room. He paused there, at the T-junction. The queen mother and the orderlies both watched in exquisite detail the inner battle Weir was a part of. Weir rushed up to the door but stopped before he could retrieve his improvised lock-picks. The view zoomed in, and they watched as Weir took too fistfuls of his own hair and pulled, before he turned away with an expression of soul-crushing pain.

Februhaha turned and pointed at Maize, then exclaimed "Hah!" in their own vindication. The lack of reaction from Maize made Februhaha look at the viewing mirrors again. Weir had stopped running, and stood not far from Mankarr's door. The reason for that was because the viceroy stood at the T-junction.

The queen mother paused her spell long enough to magic herself some popcorn and opera glasses, so that when she started her spell again she could see in even better detail.

* * *

Weir knew he'd cocked it up. Again. He should have gone get Nishi - the kid's door wasn't as heavily secured, he could have picked the lock and they'd be gone. Instead, he'd wasted time debating about rescuing Mankarr first, and now he was caught.

"Come with me, we're going back to your room." The khoravar woman was ominous, even in a pastel yellow nightgown and purple cardigan coat. Her eyes were so piercing, Weir was amazed he hadn't been pinned to a wall by her glare. Faint lines of magic crisscrossed across her body and her clothes, and the holy symbol of the Silver Flame hung around her neck - it burned with white-hot divine magic.

He ran through his options. The hallway behind him ended in a dead-end with no window. Berlith was between him and the rest of the Keep. He could fight her - but she had prepared unknown magic, he would be going in blind. He didn't have a lot of gear on him - swimming pants weren't made to have pockets, too small. But he had his lock-picks and his improvised blade. His armored arms and legs wouldn't last long, they were drying out. Already he could feel his eyes return to normal a shifter humanesque appearance rather than the yellow with verticle slit they had been.

If he drew a blade on her and lost, he wouldn't get another escape chance. They would have a guard at his door, definitely. Still wet from his pool, the shifter felt the temperature change right away. He pieced it together that it was Berlith's doing when he saw ice crawl across the floor and walls.

When his own breath became visible in small puffs in front of his face, he had to face the fact that he was neither prepared nor equipped to fight a war-seasoned clerical witch. Not yet.

"Very well," Berlith said in an outright scary monotone. "If that's your preference." She advanced on him and rolled up her right sleeve. The ice grew thicker in response.

Quickly, Weir put up his hands like he was going to fight. But as she approached, he reconsidered and put his hands behind his head as he would if he were being arrested.

Berlith didn't slow down. But she didn't strike Weir when she got within range. Instead, she walked around him and pushed on his shoulder - the unspoken 'march' command. The ice melted as they passed, which was good for Weir as he had no shoes.

"You're just going to lead me back?" Weir asked her, suspicious. They soon came to the stairs downward.

"I have better things to do with my time than to search you for contraband or chastise you as if you're a child." Berlith seemed annoyed by the question. "The doctor made some notes about the two of you being affectionate for one another, but her records don't have you two interacting within the past nineteen months."

Weir grit his saw-teeth when he remembered the way the doctor had grinned when she pieced together how Mankarr and Weir felt about each other. The literal next day, she took Mankarr off his pain-killers and made sure Weir was moved to a room just far enough that he couldn't be heard by Mankarr, but he could still hear the gnome screaming.

Gods, how he wanted to rip that halfling's head off.

"We saw each other when you were moving us to new rooms." Weir almost smiled at the memory.

"I see. And you couldn't wait for a group therapy session to see him because…?"

Weir kept a tight lip on his intent - even if she had no dragonmark, Medani were all about ferreting out lies, he feared she would sniff it out if lied and couldn't admit he was going to break Mankarr out.

After nearly a full floor of silence, Berlith stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. They had stopped on a staircase, so it was too narrow for Berlith to cross around to Weir's front. She spoke to him again from behind, where Weir could hide his expressions. "Were you upset with him over his power activating on you or something? Did he steal something of yours, and you wanted it back? If there is some seed of conflict between the two of you, it must be corrected post-haste."

She hadn't picked up on it, Weir realized with astonishment. He had the opportunity to keep it that way if he could play the situation right.

"There's no bad blood between us," Weir growled. The cold had stopped to be an issue, and now the dryness in the air was the problem. His teeth had lost their serrations and, as always, itched terribly from the change. He used that to work his jaw, and turn his head slightly, to try and play up 'searching for words'. Thora, who had gotten away, had told him to stall like that. "I don't have a lot of friends… and I was afraid it would be another nineteen months before I saw him again."

Not a lie. Not even an omission. An alternate presentation of the facts - a different context.

Berlith sighed sharply through her nose and pushed on Weir's shoulder. "Alright. Back to walking."

Weir's mind swirled with thoughts of how this could play out in the future. He'd have to tone down the physical affection toward Mankarr, and convince Mankarr to do the same. The shifter dared not look back to see Berlith's expression, lest his ruse fall on its face.

Meanwhile, Berlith was lost in memories of her youth. Her mother had once said that she could spot the times Berlith hid the food she didn't want to eat because she had pulled those same tricks as a child. In the current situation, Berlith recognized how it felt without ever having children.

If Weir hadn't been an aberrant, she would have been almost compelled to teach the man how to lie better. But considering she needed to be able to spot the lies of the prisoners would tell, that wasn't an option. Her dour expression softened as she walked Weir back to his room. Berlith made a most displeased grunt when she saw how the door had been bent slightly. Still, she pushed it open, then snapped her fingers and pointed with the same motion toward the pool inside.

Weir looked from Berlith to the hallway behind her, as if he was estimating his chance for escape. But he found the result too unlikely, for he stepped into the room and fell face-first into the pool.

Once he was in, Berlith closed the door and held her hand to it. Small cantrips of repair were useful for things like torn paperwork, broken quills, or making minor repairs to a door so that it would lock again. Once the bent steel door corrected itself just enough, Berlith locked it and went upstairs.

Meanwhile, back in the security office, the warforged orderlies had continued to watch the scene play out in silence, and the queen mother had, in turn, watched them. With Weir contained, the viceroy's progress through the Keep became their sole focus.

"Wait a minute," Adjustus commented suddenly. The shy warforged narrowed his optics and leaned forward a bit. "It almost looks like she's on her way here."

After a moment to process that, the orderlies quickly scrambled to leave the scene. Octulary and Novembem left by way of the balcony - the scout was small enough to ride on the spider-forged's back and scale the wall upward. However, the other warforged were left with the need to leave by the halls.

Februhaha, however, had to set the security station back to the inactive state. Once the mirrors were powered down, and the crystal ball returned to its podium, the acting head orderly struggled to close the swinging walls faster than their automatic gadgets would move them normally. However, the walls were simply too heavy for them to do so on their own. To their surprise, Maize stopped in the doorway and doubled back to help them push. Neither spoke about it - they were too focused on their task.

While the other orderlies fled, Februhaha and Maize struggled to close the walls and sighed when they finally clicked closed.

When they looked up, there was Berlith. Her arms crossed, her eyes piercing, and her foot repeatedly tapped against the carpet.

"I can explain," Februhaha said, and held out a three-digit hand in front of themself.

Maize stood slightly behind them, silent.

Berlith's foot continued to tap.

"Let me explain," Februhaha said, more confident than before. But afterward, they fell silent.

Maize looked between them and Berlith, his optic lights disabled so neither could tell what he did.

Berlith's right eyebrow arched dangerously high over the course of the silence. "Well?" She spoke, unamused after the silence stretched on for too long. "I'm waiting."

Februhaha held the hand outstretched position and said nothing.

Maize similarly said nothing.

Berlith sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "If I hadn't put alarms on all the aberrant's doors tonight, Weir could have gotten out. And all seven of you were here, watching it rather than stopping it." She took her hand away and looked at both of them, her gaze piercing. "Every time it rains, I want the both of you to get mops, go outside, and mop the battlements until they're dry." Her decision made, she turned to leave the room.

Maize, at least, spoke up when the khoravar woman had her hand on the door handle. "And how long will that order be standing?"

Berlith paused and looked at the creepy warforged out of the corner of her eye. "That's an excellent question." A silence stretched out between the three of them until Berlith broke it suddenly. "Bye." She opened the door and left without further discussion.

* * *

With the situation resolved, the queen mother ended her spell altogether and reclined in her seat. She popped some leftover popcorn into her mouth and reflected on what she had seen.

On a cushion filled with squishy beads, surrounded by kittens, Shatzi's cat meowed once.

"Yes," the queen mother replied, "I know it wasn't as entertaining as a fight. But still - got to watch a muscular man run around in wet swim pants, that was nice. And we learned more about the facility, also nice." Shatzi pulled open one of the seat bases near her and revealed a starry plane in the space beneath. She tossed the popcorn bucket into that space and closed it without fanfare. "Shame that man goes for other men, I could do _things_ with him." Her regal expression became absolutely mischievous.

Her cat meowed once.

The queen mother huffed. "Why do you always have to 'voice of reason' my fun thoughts? Is it the kittens? Cause when I had kids all it did was make me stressed out."

Again, the cat meowed once.

Shatzi cupped her hand to her chin. "You know, that's a good point." With a snap of her fingers and a shower of sparks, the queen mother traded her regal garments for a fluffy bathrobe, a mask of green slime on her face, curlers in her hair, and a blanket. She laid out on the expansive seats of her carriage and got as comfy as she could. "G'night. Let's hope Boranel hasn't cocked it up while we were out looking at hot men and plotting."

She knocked on the wood of her floor to ward off a jinx. But it was too late.

* * *

When the cat is the voice of reason, things are not going to go well.


End file.
